Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate his Department has made of the cost to the public purse of delivering the online pensions dashboard; and what the timescale is for that delivery.

Pensions dashboards are a digital democratiser – they will open up pensions to millions - providing an easy-to-access online view of a saver's pensions.

Government’s work on dashboards builds upon the Pensions Dashboard Prototype Project, managed by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) with the involvement of 17 pensions firms. We believe that, in the long term, as they develop to become more sophisticated, pensions dashboards could, as a minimum and as set out in our consultation response, help to achieve the following objectives:

- increase individual awareness,

- build individual control,

- increase engagement,

- support the guidance process,

- reconnect individuals with lost pension pots

- and enable more informed user choices.

A key priority for 2019 is for the Money and Pensions Service to establish the industry delivery group, and we also expect to see industry creating and testing dashboards this year. Government is committed to compelling pension schemes to make consumers’ data available to them through their chosen dashboard. Schemes need to start getting ready now, particularly in terms of preparing data. Pension schemes should be ready to provide consumer’s information to them via dashboards within a three to four years window.

A copy of the consultation with details on next steps, legislation and timelines can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/pensions-dashboards-feasibility-report-and-consultation

There is a role for government in facilitating industry's delivery of dashboards which work for consumers and put people in control of their data. That’s why, at the Autumn Budget 2018, the Chancellor allocated £3.35 million worth of funding for 2019/20 to support this endeavour.

In addition, the government’s response to the consultation on pensions dashboards stated that the Money and Pensions Service will draw on the Financial Services Levy and the General Levy on pension schemes to fund the non-commercial dashboard and the dashboard architecture. This levy is paid for by pension schemes. Additionally, there have been associated usual staff running costs for the department relating to the development of the policy.